Tracy,

Wow, I can’t imagine a beginning more suited to these strange pandemic times than chapter one of Wuthering Heights. Isolated in a house full of grumpy people? Check! Happy for any kind of social visit, even with rude company? Check! Animals acting up due to lack of socialization? Check! Mentally rehashing old relationships and feeling bad about exes? Check! All I’m missing is the servants.

Our introverted narrator, Mr. Lockwood, makes a big deal about what a loner he is while continuously seeking out the company of others. What gives? He repeatedly invites himself over to Wuthering Heights and then complains about how poorly he’s treated. And boy howdy, what a gossip! He really knows how to milk Mrs. Dean for the backstory on the whole irritable gang. About that gang…did anyone else have trouble wrapping their heads around all the people? I sure did. I ended up drawing myself a little family tree:

Notice that Heathcliff is on there twice. It took me ages to figure out, but I finally came to the conclusion that to make this work, you should imagine bending it into a circle, so that the two Heathcliffs are on top of each other, because nothing is healthier in a family tree than a circle! No, I recognize that this is actually two families and that Heathcliff is what ties them together, first through adoption (or at least being found on the street and taken home, like a stray dog), and then through marriage, but I’m still worried about how intertwined these families are. Mrs. Dean summed it up nicely when she points out that Catherine Linton is Hareton Earnshaw’s cousin on her mother’s side and her husband, Heathcliff Jr.’s, cousin on her father’s side. What a tangled mess! No wonder there’s good gossip.

 And you’re right, Tracy, these first chapters queue up so many questions about Heathcliff, our suspicious, black-eyed, morose hero. Foremost in my mind: What is wrong with him?! So rude and ill-tempered. How did he get this way (I mean, other than being abandoned on the streets as a young child)? What’s the deal with that haunted room? Why does he dislike his daughter-in-law so much? Considering how irritable and rude he is, how did he manage to win the affection of Mr. Earnshaw to such an extent that he ended up with Wuthering Heights instead of Hareton? So many questions.

 Finally, many of us are currently dealing with the stress of being temporarily trapped in our homes with family members because of a pandemic. Can you imagine being permanently trapped in an isolated home with people you don’t like because you live in a time with essentially no mobility, social or otherwise? These people – especially Catherine – have literally nowhere else to go. I’ve got it comparatively easy with my toddler-interrupted Zoom meetings and home deliveries. In any case, I do feel confident that if you and I were in the same place now, we’d also be “a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us”.

 Yours in gloom and gossip,

Eliane